


Christmas Staircase

by OtakuElf



Series: Biological Clock [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Childhood Memories, Christmas Eve, Family, Gen, Holmes Brothers' Childhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-11
Updated: 2013-12-11
Packaged: 2018-01-04 08:04:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1078556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OtakuElf/pseuds/OtakuElf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Smells often remind us strongly of the past.  For Mycroft Holmes there is one particular scent that reminds him of an important Christmas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas Staircase

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much to LunaMoth116 for beta-ing!
> 
> I left a story request for Azriona's Advent Calendar Drabbles 2013 (http://archiveofourown.org/series/63566) only to find my own mind writing it, if with slightly different characters. But do go and check out her stories! They are highly recommended!

Mycroft Holmes set the kettle on to boil and examined his choices. Orange-ginger-clove black, various herbals, gunpowder green - none appealed tonight. Picking up the tin of black tea he pried the lid with a polished fingernail. The scent was hauntingly familiar. Orange and ginger, Mummy’s favorite. Father had preferred a strong Indian blend, one that could stand up to cream and sugar. Sherlock, well, his brother drank whatever John made for him. Greg preferred coffee. That preference was probably caused by long hours at New Scotland Yard. 

Mycroft could compete with the Detective Inspector’s hours in his own career. It was Christmas Eve. They’d both been working. Now, with the winter darkness quieting everything outside, it was late. He was still dressed from the office, not even his tie loosened after the car quickly dropped him at the door, heading away to get to the driver’s own Christmas celebration. “Emergencies only,” the “British Government” had told the dispatcher, as well as Anthea, “until after the New Year. Yes, Wednesday next. Not before.” 

Reaching to replace the tin of tea, Mycroft realized that another container had been hidden behind it. Curious. He could just touch it with a long finger, could just draw it forward into the warm light of the kitchen. Cocoa powder. Not the pre-mixed version so many knew for _chocolat chaud_ now, but the dark, bitter powder meant to be mixed with sugar, salt, vanilla, and heated with milk or cream to create a sweet indulgence. Mummy had always insisted on cream. 

Anna must have hidden it when Mycroft insisted on healthier meals. Under protest, she’d gotten rid of the other baking components. This, though, had remained. Interesting. Anna was an excellent housekeeper, but she often felt constrained to give… opinions.

Mycroft had been fond of hot chocolate when he was a youth. Sherlock, as well, enjoyed the drink more often than any other. The square container opened easily, and the bitter fragrance brought the middle-aged-man back in time.

…

Mycroft Holmes, ten years of age, opened his eyes to the dark stillness of his room and listened. Darkness did not bother him. He knew every inch of the room in all types of light or the lack thereof. Movement and voices and clatter from downstairs, faintly audible through the heavy wood of the bedroom door, informed the boy that Mummy and Father were home.

A formal party on Christmas Eve required their attendance. Sherlock’s nurse had taken both children to Christmas Eve services, but they'd been presented to their parents first for inspection. For Sherlock, three years old and so precocious, the pageantry of the service was a wonder, not boring at all. The tall tree set outside the sanctuary, decorated with white and gold and pearl symbols meant to strike home that Christmas had meaning. It had maintained as a point of interest for a week now. Purple and gold habiliments, banners proclaiming the Christmas message - each sign was mystical to his little brother. Mycroft, even at ten, found the lack of faith among the congregation distracting and disillusioning. Christmas Eve, and the church would be packed full by those who attended twice a year, crowded like a sheepfold. The women, dressed up in furs and fashion, the men perfectly turned out in suits, and no one with a thought for how obviously their petty sins were displayed for any eye with the wit to see them. Mycroft preferred early, regular services where fewer people chose to attend. Though the sad fact of how few attended with any regularity gave him pause as well.

Now, here in their parents’ chambers, Mummy was surveying her sons. Sherlock’s curls, tamed, were pushed and pulled tight to his head with an evil lotion that the child loathed. Mycroft’s less unruly red was as long, but required little handling beyond a comb and brush. Their outfits matched. Sherlock usually adored wearing clothing similar to his brother’s, but tonight his lower lip pushed out mutinously at the required formality. 

Mycroft thought that he looked rather well in the navy blue suit. It disguised any shortcomings of form. Mycroft was - unfortunately, he felt - shaped like Mummy, who was of a curvaceous nature. Sherlock took after Father, slender even with the baby fat rounding his face. Mycroft inherited Father’s nose - his countenance, really. There, Sherlock took after Mummy. Odd, really, how children took after both of their parents.

Mummy and Father, however, were perfectly splendid. Mummy’s gown swept the floor from her seat at the vanity, crimson silk bringing out the jewel tones of the bedroom carpet. Her shoulders were bare and pale above the almost sleeveless neck of the gown. The cut of the neckline encouraged the eye toward the ruby and emerald necklace that covered the décolletage, and the matching ear drops. Bracelets of complimentary stones covered Mummy’s gloved wrists like armored bracers. The gems were brilliant even in the more subdued bedroom light.

Father in his tailored black, stark white shirt highlighted by a cummerbund to match his wife’s dress, was so very handsome. Father and Mummy argued over the red. Father said it clashed with his auburn hair. Mummy, her hair dark and silken, her skin so fair with the blue of her veins just evident, laughed and insisted. In later years Mycroft would wonder why Mummy’s reds had never actually warred with Father’s hair. It was a gift, being able to select exactly the perfect shade. Mycroft learned to avoid reds, as he had not inherited that particular gift.

Ruby and emerald links in the long french cuffs matched Mummy’s jewels. It wasn’t their jewelry, however, nor the colors that told anyone with sense that these two belonged together. The Holmeses were a matched set in every way. 

Makeup set with a light dusting of powder on Mummy’s skin, Mycroft and Sherlock were allowed to kiss Mummy’s white gloved hand “like gentlemen” before they were dragged away by the Nurse. Sherlock did not care for the Nurse. The three-year-old wished for a tutor, so that he could be “exactly like Mycroft”, as he had told Father. Mycroft thought the Nurse a truly boring woman. The iron-gray hair, so straight when she brushed it out, was pinned tightly into a bun during the day. She wore exclusively dark colors. The woman believed in firmness with children, and had managed to prevent any number of unforeseen events that seemed to follow his baby brother. They were not her first wards, as the photographs littering her small room made clear. She had no children of her own. Neither Mycroft nor Sherlock were under the misconception that she was fond of either of them, but she did not dislike them. She was competent.

Later on, having returned from church and put them both to bed - more of an undertaking for Sherlock than for the elder brother - the schoolroom had been tidied, and her bags packed for the morrow when she would leave for the holidays with her sister in York. The Nurse had then taken herself off to repose in her bedroom adjoining the school room. She snored. It was easy for Mycroft to tell that she was asleep.

Aside from the sounds of his parents’ return and the Nurse’s snores, Mycroft felt something was off. A phrase from a children’s book he’d been reading to Sherlock ran through his mind: “In the middle of the night, Miss Clavel turned on the light and said, ‘Something is not right’”.

Mycroft had always received a sense of his younger brother, presentiments when he was up to... well not just something…more likely “adventures”, as Sherlock called them. The next line in the book went, “and afraid of a disaster, she ran fast and even faster”. Possibly spurred on by a picture book he was much too old for, Mycroft decided he should check on the baby.

Mycroft had done this since Sherlock and Mummy had come home from the hospital. In fact, he'd been waiting for them on the staircase, both the night that his brother was born, and the day they’d finally come home. Father returning from hospital looked tired, and rumpled. That was not Father at all. The great front door opened, and Father had gusted in, pulling off his big black coat to hand to Meredith and looking up to discover Mycroft. “You have a brother, Mycroft! Should we go to see him tomorrow?” It had been one of the happiest days of his seven years.

It was Mummy, though, who usually caught him at it. The elder standing watch at the crib in pajamas and bare feet, watching the younger by the night light’s dim glow. “Mycroft, darling, Sherlock is a baby. He cannot climb out of his crib.” They would look together at the cloth-wrapped infant, black hair like down sticking up above that round, red face, fist pushed into his tiny sleeping mouth.

At fourteen months what Mummy told him was no longer true. It had almost driven Mycroft insane with worry that Sherlock would fall down the wide, formal staircase, or creep up the narrow wooden one to the servants’ quarters. Nurse, for all her boringness, trained Sherlock not to get out of the crib, and later on his bed. It was one factor in Mycroft’s attempts to be charitable toward her.

Sliding out from under his warm sheets with a measure of regret, the boy slipped thin, bare feet into precisely placed slippers and pulled on a dressing gown. He knew the house just as well in the dark as the light. At one point Mycroft had decided that he should no longer need a nightlight, and had endeavored to learn every place in the house that he had access to without turning on any lights. Fear of the dark was only a fear. It could be conquered, and so Mycroft had set out to accomplish that. 

Sherlock was not in his room, located directly across the hall from Mycroft’s. The boy moved carefully, as the spacious room was often littered with pieces of a large wooden pirate ship that Sherlock owned instead of a dollhouse. The chamber was joined to the Nurse’s room by a wooden door. That white door was visible, paint light against the papered wall even in the dark. It was closed. Snoring came from behind it. 

Nor was there a small pajama-clad form in the school room poring over texts much too large for him to handle on his own. Moving silently down the hall Mycroft might have missed his brother in the dark were it not that Sherlock’s so very pale skin reflected the lights creeping up the wide staircase from below. Sherlock, the baby brother that Mycroft Holmes had begged for, and loved with all his heart, had fallen asleep with his head against the spindles of the bannister, his arms around the newell post as though it was a stuffed toy.

“Sherlock,” Mycroft whispered, shaking the thin, pajama clad shoulder gently. “Sherlock, wake up!” If Mycroft did not want his parents to hear him, it was not from fear of punishment. Rather, Christmas Eve was a time for his parents to spend together decorating the tree in the salon. Spoiling their time together was more to be feared than any whipping or other punishment. Father spent so much time at work, and Mummy had her own duties.

The grip on the banister was not tight. Mycroft unwound the little fingers, put his arms around his brother’s waist and tried to pick the three-year-old up. Dead weight, he decided, was not as easy as when Sherlock tried to climb up into his arms. “Mmmm,” came from Sherlock, a protest at being moved, or possibly a refusal to awaken. Mycroft was not athletic, though he could ride extremely well, and had started fencing lessons. He excelled in those simply because the tutor had promised to teach Mycroft how to use a saber if he did well in epee and foil. Mycroft had told Sherlock, “After all, a saber is the next best thing to a cutlass isn’t it?” and promised to teach Sherlock everything he learned for their piratical adventures in the park. Now, the boy tried to lift his brother again. “Sherlock - ” Mycroft tried quiet reasonableness “- you have to go back to your room.”

“Mycroft?” Mummy asked quietly from the bottom of the stairs. “Why are you out of bed?”

“I am sorry, Mummy, but Sherlock fell asleep here, and I can’t pick him up. He won’t wake up either.” That was said without a whine, the soldier reporting to his officer. Still, Mycroft was trying to remain quiet.

Mummy disappeared from the base of the stairs, and Mycroft heard his father’s deep voice. In a moment they were both upstairs in the darkness. Mummy picked Sherlock up easily, and he snuggled into her shoulder, with a murmur that was not understandable. At least not to Mycroft.

“Yes, darling, we’re home,” Mummy murmured back.

Father held his arms out and Mycroft found himself being hoisted up and carried downstairs following Mummy into the brightness of the salon. He was too old for this, to be carried about by his father, but Mycroft did not protest. The stiff fabric of the starched shirt felt wonderful against his cheek. 

Sherlock was laid upon the chaise and covered with Father’s silk-lined evening jacket. The black curls, no longer slicked down, blended with the cloth, and the child’s fair skin and soft red mouth shone brighter because of it. Most of the servants had been sent to bed, and it was just Meredith hovering in the background. The portly butler had been with the Holmes family for years. He was long accustomed to their eccentricities. “Meredith,” Father said, “would you bring us something hot? And then you can go to bed. We will close up when we’re done.”

“ _Chocolat chaud_ , please,” from Mummy, “three of them.” Mycroft’s glance down at Sherlock was not missed, as Mummy corrected herself, “Four, I think, instead, Meredith. Thank you.”

Father put Mycroft on his own two feet, running a big, loving hand through hair that was so much like his. They did not often touch, their family. “But Mummy, this is your time. Yours and Father’s,” Mycroft said.

“Oh, I believe we can find a way to share. Christmas is for sharing, Mycroft,” came from Father.

“Would you like to play for us, darling? While your father and I trim the tree?” Mummy was setting boxes of decorated cardboard out on every surface.

Mycroft’s breath of relief, his quick smile at the thought, were given little time as he went to sit on the bench before the baby grand at the end of the salon. A larger grand piano was kept upstairs in the music room, along with the other instruments, Mummy’s violin and cello, and Sherlock’s tiny violin. The family called this parlor “the salon” because Mycroft had misunderstood the evening events his mother hosted from time to time, confusing the word “salon” with the type of room. Mummy’s Salons were fashionable, and granted exposure to young poets and musicians who were looking for patronage, and a relief from boredom for those with money to be spent on such. At times Mummy would allow Mycroft to attend one if a pianist was performing, or both her sons if she was playing.

Mycroft chose the carols from that evening’s service to start, and was pleased at Mummy’s smile in response. More favorites followed as Father began to sing along, a deep-voiced burr, not always in tune. They were not loud. This was just for them, not the household. Much as Mycroft practiced, playing for his family was what he truly enjoyed.

The tree, a fir with long needled branches that looked soft to touch, but were really quite sharp, reached almost to the high plastered ceiling. The room was filled with the pleasant, nose-prickling smell of the pine sap, both from the tree and the greens hung from the mantle and around the room. A mistletoe ball swung from the center of the hall’s high ceiling in front of the steps, for the servants had hung the greens and brought the tree into the house, setting it in the stand. Mummy could not climb the ladder in her gown, and so Father took care of that part of the tree. He was tall enough to reach the top, to place the glass and gilt star that Grandmere had given Mycroft's parents as a wedding gift long ago. 

Sherlock remained asleep until Meredith brought in the silver chocolate pot, and Mycroft joined him on the chaise. Eyes wide at the splendor of a late night with their parents, Sherlock leaned against his elder brother as they sipped the beaten chocolate, hot and sweet and rich with cream and vanilla. Mummy and Father had a rhythm to their movements. They rarely ran into each other reaching for an ornament or to take a sip of their own chocolates. It was like watching a play, the bright crimson of Mummy’s gown, the rustling sound of it swishing against the tree or furniture, or their father laughing at Mummy's word games. 

Sherlock fell asleep again before he’d done more than taste his drink. Mycroft rescued the china cup and settled it safely on the lacquered end table with his own. Shifting his small burden, Mycroft put his head down, cheek against those soft, dark curls, and fell into dreams. 

In the morning they’d woken in the same bed, Mycroft’s. On the bedside table was a carton with marzipan ornaments, a violin and a book, safe guarded by white tissue paper. It was a gift from their father, and the only ornaments the boys were allowed to place upon the tree.

All else paled that Christmas, when examined against being a part of their parents’ private time together, with carols and hot chocolate. The gifts though splendid, the extended family arriving for a sumptuous dinner, the appearance of Pere Noel, the chance for Mycroft and Sherlock to play their duet of piano and violin in a small recital, were as nothing when compared to the stiff, starched feel of Mycroft’s father’s shirt as he carried his elder son down to the salon.

…

Mycroft Holmes set the tin of cocoa down on the marble counter and went to find his mobile. Dialing a number he knew well, he heard the familiar voice answering, “Mycroft? What’s up?”

“I hope it is not too late to be calling.” The social complexities must be observed.

“No. Still at work. Almost finished with the last of the paperwork. For today. I’m off tomorrow and the rest of the week and next until January 2nd. You still at work?” Greg Lestrade could be heard stretching in that antiquated creaking chair at his desk in the NSY.

“No, I have finished with my paperwork as well. I was wondering, Greg, if you would like to join me for hot chocolate and a film?” Mycroft walked past the home theater, through the pocket doors into the media library, found Dickens, and examined the disks on those shelves.

“Sounds great. What film?” Greg was pleased to be asked.

Mycroft found it, tipping the case off the shelf. “A Christmas Carol. 1938. It’s a black and white, I’m afraid.”

Greg laughed. “There’s no singing in it? I mean, it’s not a musical?”

Mycroft smiled. “No, that would be later versions of the tale. Unless you would prefer those. I have them.”

“No! Black and white and 1938 is fine. Right,” Greg said, shoveling papers into their folders. “I’ll be there in thirty.” 

Mycroft returned to the kitchen to prepare. Popcorn, yes, that was the next item, hot chocolate with a hint of cinnamon to make up for the lack of cream, and good company. What better Christmas Eve could there be?

**Author's Note:**

> For those who are interested, here is the story Azriona wrote for my request : http://archiveofourown.org/works/1097375 
> 
> It needs to be printed out, folded into a cube. Not specifically Christmas, think Escher, but Very Cool Indeed! Here is a picture of my copy, folded, taped, and (after reading) a part of my Christmas tree. http://cousin-sue.livejournal.com/335583.html


End file.
